OUR MAYFLOWER FOREMOTHERS #7: Lydia Gorham-9GGM

SMITH (Post, Dort, Winsor, Secord, Harris, Harris, McCall, Otis, Thacher, Gorham, Howland, Tilley, Hurst)
OUR MAYFLOWER FOREMOTHERS: Story Index

Ancestry of 9^th GGM: LYDIA GORHAM (1661-1744) 2^nd wife of John THACHER (1638-1713)

Daughter of 1635 Immigrant, JOHN GORHAM --and--
Daughter of DESIRE HOWLAND-Our next Mayflower Foremother

Lydia GORHAM Thacher

LYDIA GORHAM

A Kiss and a Promise

Just as Anthony Thacher’s shipwreck survival was part of the history of colonial New England, so Lydia Gorham’s kiss was captured in its lore. In Totten’s Thacher-Thatcher Genealogy a fateful love story is romantically captured:

“Family tradition furnishes us with an interesting anecdote

relating to the first and second wives of Hon. Col. John Thacher, which is as

follows:

On his return to Yarmouth from Marshfield with his first bride and

company, they stopped at the house of Captain John Gorham at Barnstable.

In the merry conversation with the newly married couple, an infant was brought

into the room, about three weeks old, and Mr. Thacher was informed the child

had been born on such a night; he replied that it was the very night on which

he was married; and taking the child in his arms he presented it to his bride

saying: "Here, my dear, is a little lady born the same night that we were

married; I wish you would kiss it, as I intend to have her for my second wife."

"I will, my dear," she replied "to please you, but I hope it will be a long time

before you have that pleasure!" so taking the babe, she kissed it.

This jesting prediction was eventually verified. Mr. Thacher's first wife Rebecca Winslow died, and the child Lydia Gorham, arriving at mature age actually became his

2nd wife January 1st, 1683-4. Upon the death of his first wife July 15th, 1683,

Hon. John Thacher was plunged into what seemed to be hopeless grief and

composed to her memory an eulogistic poem of many lines under date of Aug-

ust 30, 1683. Yet so capable is the human heart of healing, and so remarkable

was his recuperative powers that on January 1, 1683-4, he was married again

and his second bride was the baby of the tradition (then become a young lady.)” 

Of course, family lore often contains elements of truth and fancy. In this case, it seems possible that the young newly-weds visited the Thacher’s neighbors, John and Desire Gorham, shortly after the birth of the Gorham’s 9^th child, Lydia. It is also likely that John Thacher’s bride got to hold the newborn and, indeed, kissed it. Perhaps the coincidental birth and marriage created a special bond between the couple and the child who, in the years to come, may have been a playmate to their own children. As to the promissory seal of a kiss on the infant’s head …well, that may have been embellished to help give special credence to a marriage twenty-two years later between a young woman and a widower who was more than twice her age.

And it was a special union. At Yarmouth, on the first of January, 1683/84, twenty-two-year-old Lydia Gorham married Colonel John Thacher, 45, and was welcomed into his household of seven children ages five to nineteen. This union would produce another twelve children, among whom our 8th great grandmother, Hannah Thacher, would continue the Mayflower lineage of her grandmother Desire (Howland) Gorham with twelve children of her own.

Born in 1690, Hannah was named in honor of the youngest of John and (first wife) Rebecca’s surviving children who sadly died the previous year at the age of ten. At 24, Hannah Thacher married Ensign Nathaniel Otis at Yarmouth.

Hannah’s sister Mary became the wife of their cousin, Colonel Shubael Gorham, son of their mother's brother, Lieutenant Colonel John Gorham, Jr.

Beginning with Hannah and Mary’s grandfather, our 1635 immigrant ancestor, Captain John Gorham, Sr., (who married Desire Howland, daughter of Mayflower immigrants, John and Elizabeth [Tilley] Howland), the Gorham family gained special recognition for their contributions to early American military defense. Among our notable cousins are generations of Gorham Rangers. They will be the subject of the next follow-up post on the Gorham family.

Devo, Simeon L., ed. History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts: 1620-1637-1686-1890, Barnstable. 1910. (Chapter XVII, pp. 456-458.)

Totten, John R. Thacher-Thatcher Genealogy, NY Genealogical & Biographical Society and NEHGS. 1910. (Note 2. Page 103)